So depression needs to be treated, but retroviruses, high viral titres, NK and cytokine abnormalities - these are best ignored, right? Fatiguing psychological disorders need urgent treatment, but fatiguing immune or viral abnormalities need to be brushed under the rug. Wess seems to struggle with this intellectual blind spot quite often.

Koan, I want you to know how much I appreciate your swimming through the proverbial sewer. This was an extremely important transcription, because it captures Wesseley et al in a potentially unscripted, and vulnerable mode: the wonderful podcast.

Great ammunition for investigative reporters and class-action lawsuits on ME/CFS!
I'm just back from my monthly hospital IV trip, so am just not up (YET!) to commenting further right now. But bottom line, we NEED to keep transcribing/copying/saving this kind of dreck, if only to save it for posterity, and pass it on piecemeal to investigative reporters and/or lawyers. This podcast/transcription is going to come back to bite the CBT/GET lobby, and the BMJ.

I felt dirty reading the transcription, and can only imagine how you felt, Koan, listening to this over and over to transcribe it. You can take your mucking gloves off now!

[FONT=&quot]You know, youve been hit by a car; we dont need to know the number plate of the car that hit you in order to rehabilitate someone whos been in a road traffic accident. Nor, when were dealing with CFS do we need to know precisely what virus it was that you had and when. [/FONT]
​

If ever there were words that screamed of medical ignorance, injustice - much less malpractice - this is it. Wesseley's words here are beyond those of an intellectual simpleton - he and the CBT/GET movement are mortally dangerous to patients with Canadian-criteria ME/CFS. Just look at the differential presentation of viral heart disease, which is known to accompany ME/CFS ... it makes a MASSIVE difference which virus you have - both to your outcomes, and to your treatment... that is if you're one of the lucky ones like me who is having viral heart disease treated. (just do a search on "viral myocarditis" on PubMed). People are dying from this. Just look at the outcomes of Montoya's Stanford work on Valganciclovir. It makes a huge difference, not only which virus you have, but also what the titre is.

Hang in there... quotes like those from this podcast are going to ROCK the global media when they finally come to their senses and realize that another Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome is being treated with preening lollipops, condescending pats on the head and veiled admonishments to have a better attitude. And that the BMJ is lapping it up - and broadcasting this dreck.

Perhaps the last words in Part 2 of the transcription are the most chilling, because it beautifully captures the effect of decades of denying ME/CFS patients biological diagnostics and treatment...

"we want people to engage in this area and help move it forward in a steady fashion."
​

It is no surprise that Wesseley ends with a note to preserve the status quo. Steady now... steady... Perish the thought that a stunning breakthrough might occur that would expose the one-size-fits all CBT/GET approach to ME/CFS as methodologically and scientifically flimsy, much less morally repugnant and dangerous.

And Monkeybusiness, I had no idea the BMJ was state-funded. That goes a long way to illuminating the BMJ's participation in this farce.

Thanks again Koan, you're a trooper!:Retro smile:
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Amazing post, parvofighter.

His horrible words will rock the world, if we keep showing them to the media and trying to interest them as much as we can. Wessely and co.'s strategy of repeating lies over and over until they're believed cuts both ways. There are millions more of us than them. If we keep repeating the truth in an engaging way to the media over and over, eventually many more of them will sit up and listen and expose this scam and that will lead to real change It's going slowly now, but there is gathering momentum. There will be a 'tiping point' where all of a sudden there is big interest in this scandal. We need to keep publicizing the scam to the media to get to this point, even if, in the moment, it seems pointless because they're not listening to us enough.

Also thanks to those informing us that BMJ is state sponsored- as with some of the charities, this explains alot. I am a huge fan of socialized medicine and am glad it is coming to the US in a form. But this sort of control of medical thought by Wessely and co. thru the govt is very sobering.

Exactly! This is why we lawyers are rightly hated- for often being disingenuous. Wessely is like the guy from "Thank you for Smoking"- a shyster who can make people believe he's telling the truth, cares about people's welfare and being reasonable. This kind of person is the most dangerous. Wessely seems to me to be a sociopath, because this is what they're like- they are amoral and feel manipulation of others for their own aggrandizement is a virtue.

Exactly! This is why we lawyers are rightly hated- for often being disingenuous. Wessely is like the guy from "Thank you for Smoking"- a shyster who can make people believe he's telling the truth, cares about people's welfare and being reasonable. This kind of person is the most dangerous. Wessely seems to me to be a sociopath, because this is what they're like- they are amoral and feel manipulation of others for their own aggrandizement is a virtue.

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yes he uses medicolegalese, undefined ambiguous terms which change meaning with context. He can pretend his terms have whatever meaning he chooses , the image that comes into my mind is slimy and slithering

(Wesseley): The model that we use at the moment, unsatisfactory though it may be, is that its a bit like being in a hit and run accident. You know, youve been hit by a car; we dont need to know the number plate of the car that hit you in order to rehabilitate someone whos been in a road traffic accident. Nor, when were dealing with CFS do we need to know precisely what virus it was that you had and when.

"Retroviruses such as HIV and HTLV-1don't hit-and-run, they hit-and-hide.
They slip into host cells and insert their own DNA into the cell's DNA, and from this refuge they establish an infection that lasts a lifetime."​

There... now I can live with a simple car analogy to describe this complex neuro-immune disease. Think that'll be simple enough for the CBT/GET business "leaders"?

Exactly! This is why we lawyers are rightly hated- for often being disingenuous. Wessely is like the guy from "Thank you for Smoking"- a shyster who can make people believe he's telling the truth, cares about people's welfare and being reasonable. This kind of person is the most dangerous. Wessely seems to me to be a sociopath, because this is what they're like- they are amoral and feel manipulation of others for their own aggrandizement is a virtue.

I think that part of Wessely's attitude is explained by the relationship that similar doctors have with insurance companies. Many of the Wessleyite doctors work either as consulatants for insurance companies in advisory roles or as examining doctors for people with claims.

It's apt then that he used the "hit by a car" example.

In the UK the Wessleyites help the insurance industry and this means that they can disallow claims for physical injuries by claiming that they are psychological injuries and treatable, that the witness is lying about their injuries, and they claim that they can get people back to work (hence the move on and rehabilitate).

This saves insurance companies a lot of money. I know because this is what happened to me (different doctor in my case but same psychobabble).

Wessely says, "maybe people will laugh at our treatment plan in a hundred years". I've got news for you Wessely. They would have laughed at it a hundred years ago, we are laughing now and they will still be laughing in another hundred years.

That makes you two hundred years stupid and you are not even sixty five yet!!!

When they were casting for the Muppet Show I am sure you were first choice to play Kermit, until they found a real frog. It was a close run thing though!!

his psychiatric background is fairly well known to me (I am a psychologist and philosopher who is a few years older than he is), and it is mostly the so-called anti-psychiatry of the late sixties and seventies,

Hmm.... I take Wessely quite serious, and if he is mad in some ways - as he very well may be, since that is a major occupational risk of psychiatrists, as is suicide, as is believing pseudo-scientific trash - he has the training and the intelligence to hide it well.

As a narcissist he would be unable to tolerate the idea of being wrong and hence imperfect.

The anxiety would invoke denial systems affect thought processes interpretive frame works and so on.

Imperfection loss of atatus andpower invoke terror and rage in such a person rejection and humiliation worse than a sword through the heart.

you are right narcissts are not to be underestimated--I would not take on Alexander the great in a fight!

A psyche made of glass can be shattered however ridicule would be my weapon of choice.

It would have to come from people he considered intellectually equal or those in a position to take his power and prestige away.

Complaints from PWCs merely reinforce his much needed feeling of superiority.It is similar in pattern to being put on a pedestal.

One of these is the UK's 'Dr Crippen' blog where the denigration and deliberate taunting of those with M.E., Lyme and fibromyalgia by NHS GPs is common.

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"Dr Crippen" has retired from the NHS.

He continues to blog (though his postings do not attract as many comments as they used to) and he continues with his Guardian column or at least, he had an article published last week. The blurb on the Guardian site has not been amended to reflect his retired NHS status and it's not known for how long the Guardian might retain him as a columnist, now he's no longer a practising GP.

As Min says, one of his most recent Guardian pieces had included a bash at Fibromyalgia.

"Dr Crippen's" posting announcing his retirement from the NHS is here:

"So, after much thought, and some regret, I have resigned from the GMC. I'm no longer registered. I am no longer a practising doctor and I am not allowed to practise."

"I have retired earlier than many doctors, and that has had repercussions on my pension, which is not as big as it might have been. It's hard to get 40 years in as a doctor anyway and, because I had done law before medicine, I was a particularly late starter. But I will not starve, and I am luckier than many."

"The GMC tell me I'm still entitled to call myself "doctor" - even if you are no longer registered with the GMC, they cannot take your qualifications away from you. You are still a "doctor" albeit non-pracitsing. I've never been the sort of doctor who signs in at hotels using the title, so that is of little interest to me..."

[From the Comments to the above posting]

"And it is not a spoof. I really am an ex-doctor now and have been for a few weeks. I did take several months of NHS BLOG DOCTOR a few years ago; I guess I was "blogged out" but I did not start the rumours that I was dead, or have been committed, or was being dried out somewhere. The truth was far more boring. I just stayed away from the internet for 3 months."

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I understand "Dr Crippen" was a senior partner in his practice. He told his readers some time ago, that he was on a salary of 75% of 155K pa. One does not give up that kind of salary lightly, especially with four teenagers to educate.

I suspect that a political issue within his practice, perhaps relating to forthcoming changes that were not to his taste has prompted his decision to quit earlier than he might otherwise have done.

"Dr Crippen" did not do much in the way of research for his postings around ME and CFS which have been ill-informed and have often contained errors and misconceptions, as well as being intensely provocative.

Min mentions "Dr Crippen's" love of the phrase "ME militants".

In this posting, last year, following the publication of the Lombardi Science paper, he wrote:

"The militant wing of the Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) brigade broke out the champagne when a recent article in Science reported that a retrovirus had been found in 67% of ME patients compared to under 4% of the general population. Sadly, the study only involved just over 100 patients and is thus inconclusive..."

It was suggested to him that rather than make assumptions that Jodi Bassett would be one of those celebrating in response to the Lombardi study, he should have first approached Jodi and her colleagues for their position on XMRV.

He made no comment, of course, and the link remains unamended.

I see a colleague of Jodi's has had a Rapid Response published (6 March 10) on the BMJ site in relation to ME, CFS, the use of "ME/CFS" and "CFS/ME", with some references to XMRV:

"The incubation period for ME, G93.3, is only approx 3-7 days, which effectively eliminates many 'causes' considered for 'CFS', including CMV, EBV, and XMRV, which have much longer incubation periods."

"Those of us who actually are ME-defined (Ramsey, Hyde) are deeply distressed by these behaviours; these illogical and unscientific approaches. By this 'highjacking' of our extremely debilitating Neurogenic disease - simply to try to make theirs "sound more serious". How unscrupulous!"

"P.S. The WPI's XMRV study was NOT done on any ME-defined (Hyde, Ramsey) G93.3, patients."​

So, I'm afraid "Dr Crippen" now has considerably more time on his hands. Let's hope he spends some of that time better informing himself around the illness before penning future articles on ME.

Hmm.... I take Wessely quite serious, and if he is mad in some ways - as he very well may be, since that is a major occupational risk of psychiatrists, as is suicide, as is believing pseudo-scientific trash - he has the training and the intelligence to hide it well.

As a narcissist he would be unable to tolerate the idea of being wrong and hence imperfect.

The anxiety would invoke denial systems affect thought processes interpretive frame works and so on.

Imperfection loss of atatus andpower invoke terror and rage in such a person rejection and humiliation worse than a sword through the heart.

you are right narcissts are not to be underestimated--I would not take on Alexander the great in a fight!

A psyche made of glass can be shattered however ridicule would be my weapon of choice.

It would have to come from people he considered intellectually equal or those in a position to take his power and prestige away.

Complaints from PWCs merely reinforce his much needed feeling of superiority.It is similar in pattern to being put on a pedestal.

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Hi Gerwyn.

I think the mistake a lot of us make is thinking that everyone with CFS is just like us, as many people on this forum unashamedly state "CFS is a broad umbrella term that covers many illnesses". For some "CFS" patients Simon Wessley treats I have no doubt in my mind he's correct, and if you read the interview I posted above, the 66 to 33 percent of the others he sees have a real biological disease. I'd rather wish we weren't bundled together, not because I believe the other patients to have an illness that is less than the one we possess, but because it would mean we could all be treated to suit our needs much more appropriately.

No, not to my knowledge. I am talking about a piece he wrote (or spoke) about the books that influenced him to want to study psychiatry. I read almost all of them. He trained in the subject at a time when, especially in Great Britain, psychiatry had a very low academic standing and a very bad reputation in the public.

Maarten.

P.S. I have the piece somewhere on my harddisk, but got the link from the forum. (Apart from Goffman, it is not worth bothering. Goffman is.)

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Sorry, I have just re-read what you had said again, I thought you were speaking about the criticisms of psychiatric evaluation and care in the 70's. Silly me.

I do not know whether he is a narcissist in the strict sense. Note also that whatever is wrong with him in a psychiatric sense he probably knows how to compensate quite welll. (I do agree with you he likes to play a public part, but that is quite common.)

But I agree on the quote - ridicule, sarcasm and satire are the way to deal with him, mostly at least, and thankfully professor Malcolm Hooper did the science for the benefit of all of us patients with ME, while professor Wessely did not challenge it in a court, which is sufficient proof, for anyone who read it, that he or his lawyers do not want to meet professor Hooper in court.

And in this context, and given his background (family formerly called Weisel), I find it most peculiar that in all the pictures I saw of Wessely - for example, check out the link Knackered provided:

- he seems to wear a small Hitlerite moustache. Did somebody paint this in, or does he really sport it? And note please that someone with my background, site and proven talent for satire can do a lot with this, so I really like to know:

Does anybody know - and when I write "know" I mean "know", not "guess", "surmise" etc. - whether professor Simon Wessely, whose father sat in the train to Treblinka, but survived the war, who knows with what lesions and traumas, does or did wear a small Hitlerite moustache in real life?

Outside neo-nazi circles, he must about the only one to do so, in the West, since 1945.

Anyway... you being Welsh (I suppose is the right term, having known Welshmen and Scotsmen) and a psychologist may know people who may know whether Wessely does or did wear this secondary male characteristic. (It is very odd if he did or does, and I can base a whole tome of psycho-analysis on it, in a period I am a bit fitter than now, and my satire-glands itch. And I have known a considerable number of Jewish people - or of Jewish background - of my parents' generation who did survive concentration-camps: Noone of then wore a moustache, let alone a Hitlerite moustache, and that was definitely not done, morally speaking.

I'd much like to know the facts about the moss on Wessely's upper lip, and use it if it is so: Psychiatrically, it is a major symptom, for a man with his background, and for such a one it is decidedly odd.

Maarten.

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i think what he has got is aparticulat kind of avoidant attachment pattern resulting froma psychologically or physically absent parent. fesr of rejection need for adoration model of manipulation

masogeny etc fit this particular pattern.I am of course as you probably realise a very neurobiological psychologist looking at neural networks representational models etc but ridicule will hurt if done correctly glad you are back